I have to say I was listening in awe, because it is so amazing. It is a mix of things I recognize from my whole life!
Yeah! That’s how I felt myself, at this age, 46, All the experience I have with my ex-band and all the bands I toured with and played with, all these inspirations since I was a kid. Like there’s a lot of hardrock stuff I loved when I was a kid and I was missing a lot of that kind of feeling from the eighties and the nineties. It is so rich, for our generation especially and I think it is a loss if you cannot deliver that to the future generations and try to keep that spirit alive. I am from Portugal, not the biggest metal capital in the world, unfortunately, and if I can continue making people aware that there is still a metal scene coming from my country. I think international. When making the music I am thinking of other cultures and other experiences, even from the perspective of being one of them. I had sometimes experiences in countries that felt like I had family there. In some I actually do (laughs). I was brought up in America and I have a lot of family there. When I was touring in the US, all these feelings of immigrants I understand perfectly, because my parents were also immigrants and had a hard time adapting to the American culture, but there is so much richness. Just think of Holland. All the great shows and experiences and people, how much they admire you, the infrastructure, the spirit for metal, the Dynamo Festival whom I played there the first time in 1997, before Wacken and HellFest. Not many people know these days that Dynamo was the biggest festival at that time, which probably served as a model for the future. I was part of that generation and I experienced that on stage and the festival; because I stayed there for several days and I ended up in some tents (laughs). I always enjoyed that. Even though I played at those festivals, I wanted to see it from the side of the public as well. That’s how you really see how everybody spent the night. You learn a lot. That’s when you really get to know people that love your music, not by just seeing them and yell at them or do horns. You never spend time with them or talk to them or get to know them. Everybody also has family and problems. It is interesting to be able to be part of that. Each time more. Now I have a whole band to dedicate and be part of again (chuckles). I think it is the fuel for all musicians, maybe some don’t care so much as we do. That is disappointing when we meet somebody that we really love, the music, and they are not the nicest persons in the world. We have a long career. You can be in a bad mood some day, you can be in a good mood, but at least, for me, I try to keep as positive as possible.

How did you feel when you left a successful band like Moonspell? That must have been a big step I think?
Yeah, that’s what I put inspiration from for ‘The Haunted Sea’ and ‘Saudade’. It is a lot of the feeling of what I lost and how I would get to the next step. There’s a moment when I really felt I was drowning and I had nowhere to go. I had no possibilities, I was just looking at what I had lost exactly. It took time to build something that would give me focus and something to work hard for and to fight for and this band is what made that happen. So it is kind of like me leaving that part of my career behind – NOT forgotten! – and it felt like starting from zero for me, not wanting to give up. I thought about giving up on music at first, because it is very hard in Portugal if you come from a band like I did and you have to start from zero. If I’d lived in Finland or Sweden or Germany, there are so many musicians, professionals who are used to touring, or I could look for another band which has already a following, but to stay in Portugal… My daughter is almost six years old, I have lived here for thirty years, I don’t see myself going anywhere else, so I thought: maybe things have changed and I can actually make an amazing band. No luxury of course where I was used to, no logistics or budget. I did this with almost nothing, and it was with the help of so many friends. People who really wanted us to succeed. Even when we went to the studio, they helped with our equipment and preproduction. Really old school; like teenagers, just a drum kit and cabinets, just rehearsing in the tiny space that we could afford. We really went back to those classic rock stories in the beginning. For me it is like I am doing it a second time (laughs). But fortunately everything went a lot smoother than I anticipated. I had not record drums in Portugal since 1994, so all my albums I did in Denmark or in England, Germany, Sweden and I was scared too. Technically, but fortunately the studio that I went to was amazing. Also the technician from Dynamics Studios was great. He said he was a fan of my style of playing and my band and he was really enthusiastic about meeting the other members. The studio is only half an hour from my home. It was amazing for me, for the first time over 25 years, to get in my car and after half an hour I was behind my drum kit, testing it and ready to record. Otherwise I always had to catch a plane, travelling, not the whole drum kit, etc… This experience brought me through the months of recording, which I think was meaningful and it made me a lot richer in my perspective, because I had a lot more time to think about things, to feel things, to think about every day life. Putting that into the music is so much more emotional, because for years I was always gone from one tour to the studio, from the studio to another tour and it was always so quick. There was no time to let things set in. I had that experience since the early days when we were younger and lived with our parents. We were all accessible to the band and rehearsed only in the weekend. And those first albums benefit a lot from that I think. The way I did this album, was one part on one weekend, then a little part on another night, because all the members have normal jobs. That is another interesting thing on this project: how is this all going to happen now? For them, to leave their jobs, there’s got to be a certain structure of shows, but the dream is there and I am reliving that dream with them, even though I have gone through it all (laughs). When I start thinking about my career, it sounds like a joke. It sounds as if it is not true and it is so distant now, especially now when I haven’t played live for over more two years. But that part for me is secondary, because what I really wanted was making the best album possible.

And you have written all the songs, a huge mission…
I wrote them with the band. By myself I would never be able to do something like this. I have a kind of direction and experience. When you have a professional career, you have to be dedicated for 100%. I have the experience to work with the producers and I did it for so many years, with so many bands, other musicians, to bring all this to this band is what made me the focal point. It was always surrounding. I had the responsibility and also the drive and the confidence I didn’t have, but the band gave me confidence. The way that I started to do a song, to explain how we usually do the preparation for recording, what is most important in the song. For me the way you play it from an emotional standpoint and how to get that best performance in the studio. I was on top of every little detail, but that is constructing the band. I always did that with my other band and I just brought it to this band and of course, being the oldest and the most experienced, in terms of production I had to take decisions, in working on keyboards, I had to describe all the ideas I wanted for each song, so it could be prepared for when we go to the studio. We played it all in real time, which is amazing. Nothing is programmed on this album. Getting the recording done, today it is a big fight, because everything is digital. It was a huge fight to get it as authentic as possible. And that’s what I miss compared to the old days. Of course, you have to compromise on certain points, but overall, the way that I had envisioned, it was a bit of a crazy time, it felt as if I was possessed. I just had to do this, no matter what and it was a constant day to day work. Making the demos and talking to the band, thinking of new ideas, rehearsing throughout the pandemic, sometimes we had to be home at ten. So we had to rehearse earlier. All that is on the album now, overcoming all these obstacles. It has a lot to do with our culture. It is in our genes, I think we are professional mourners. We take it to another level, talking about death. Everybody tells you their problems, even if you don’t know them, we start to spit it out immediately, but in a way, when you are used to that, it is nice to be able to talk to people. I think as medicine I think it is better to have someone who listens, at least acknowledge that they exist. Of course sometimes it is too much and I think ‘that’s not of your business’, but here it is like it is everybody’s business. We definitely need a balance; I think each time we need each other more.

I think it is precious if you can talk about your problems. In the north they go to the psychiatric doctor and they have to pay to get better… if you out yourself to people, it is part of solving the problem sometimes…
Yes, it is like therapy, without psychologists. Most of the part you just talk and tell them whatever you want, whatever troubles you have and even though there is a lot behind that, profession and help, but I think the major part of it is just having tht experience of just letting everything out. I did that a lot, with everything happening to me and levels in my life and I had a lot of things to get out.

A nice example of the Portuguese nature is ‘Saudade’, because that stands for the melancholic side of you…
Definitely. That song stands a little separate from the rest of the album. It was the last song we wrote and it was only in two weeks. We just got the information that we were signed by Atomic Fire, we were super excited and we were brainstorming with the label during first meetings. I was thinking about something that would be extra special for the Portuguese and I had this like idea when the band started. When I saw that enthusiasm behind the label, it was like a bolt of lightning gone through my head, full of ideas. That day I turned to the band and I said: ‘We are going to do a song specifically like this’. We had only one riff and that riff made it all happen. It was one of these magical moments that we always talk about. I remember that from the past with my other band with the song ‘Opium’, I remember the base only took five minutes, it just happened. As much as you try as a professional, you cannot force these things and sometimes they never come back, years go by. This just spontaneously happened and then we were super excited. At some certain point I said that we had to have something extra special for the Portuguese, with the fado influences. I was afraid, because it was rock and metal, that it would come out a little bit cheesy, but it was perfect. There has to be a good balance between both worlds and that is why I asked the vocalist if he could do something like that, because he hadn’t done something close to that in the other songs. At that time I only knew him for a year from rehearsing, we never had a drink or dinner together, due to the restrictions, so we were working on this project together, but somehow I didn’t know him that well yet and what he could do and also his background. At that precise moment at the rehearsals, he did this fado-like part and everybody was so impressed that they started clapping, which is our tradition when you go to a fado house. Of course people go to a fado club for a drink or a dinner while listening to fado and everything is about loss as reference. That moment was so special that we had the necessity to clap. I also have a lot of memories of my grandmother and I think of all the people in this life that today aren’t with us. Some kind of memory, some kind of memorial. Even in the music world we have lost a lot of people. So I asked the people to dedicate this song to someone special in their lives. You can read that in the credits, just specifically for that song. So I think it represents the best that I could, what comes from Portugal, embedded in our culture, our ‘saudade’ which is so hard to describe. It is so nice to see how fans and friends finally understanding the true meaning of saudade. It is so hard to translate. I got this idea because it was always so hard to describe that feeling we always had to other foreigners. I think every culture has something similar, but when you translate it, it says ‘missing’. And missing is not what we are thinking of with saudade. It comes from our family, our background, our land, our wine, our beaches, the smell of everything that brings back childhood memories, and for many people who are far from their home it is so much harder, so I give them that special gift of having a song that is their own. I am doing this for all of us. A very special moment. There are also tears in the process. Not so much now, I am more stable, but there are a lot of tears involved in everything I can remember from my past and everything you can imagine, I did to have a career for so many years. Then I thought about making a Portuguese version and we did. That is perfect. You can see it as a special token of my appreciation for all the support during all these years. So it is a very intense song. The rest of it is a little different. People are experiencing this song like our process backwards. The first song they got to hear was something super recent, and this song is actually one of the first songs we wrote. About a year and a half ago, with Rez on vocals. We had only one song and then we did not have a vocalist for a couple of months. When Rez came into the picture, that’s when we felt like: ‘okay, now we are a real band’. All the members have different projects, but with this it is a true opportunity to release their talent and I am so glad to be able to help with that. Rez heard his voice for the first time on the album after the few mixes that we did, he told me: ‘Mike, I never heard my voice so good in my life.’ (laughs). That reminded me of the beginning. When you work in an institute for so long, you know what to do from the beginning. It is so essential when the time comes to mix. I always have that philosophy for some reason why, I always fought against it, it is like everything is always so complicated, so demanding, everything took hours and hours and hours for one little thing, and I always thought: ‘why can’t things be simple? Why can’t we be more precise and more emotional in what we are doing?’ At least some kind of enjoyment and happiness and with this project I got to do that, because everything works in that manner. Things do not take forever, like the vocals: Rez recorded four songs in one day. I recorded most of the album in one day also. Everything was super quick. We also had to be quick. When we started we did not have a label yet, we had the pandemic, I don’t have a band, we don’t have shows. After a few days we were over the budget that we could afford at that time. We did the best that we could and I think that helps a lot. Usually we work a lot longer at preproduction before going into the studio and I was like: ‘come on, let’s go’, it felt like going to a show. I didn’t care, I wanted to record this and I wanted to get this album done. But afterwards there was of course a process of weeks, analyzing everything, all the little treasures that the album needs, but it started from that group and that group was just rehearsing. Whenever we were together, an hour or two, we were always playing. I think we got to know each other as friends later on. During that whole process, there was not much time. Our bond was the music and that is so special about this. Like Ben, our guitar player, when he sent us a riff, each time I was listening to his riff, he makes my day. And that’s how I felt throughout the whole process. He is amazing and he has so much talent. He is always ready to write music and work on songs. That is, for a drummer like me, so important. Nowadays you use the computer and you spend hours looking at the computer, and here in the beginning, the computer was me (laughs). I had to play the drums, because there was no technology like there is today. A lot of bands work at home and send files, but I really need to have that atmosphere and chemistry from all of us.

You hear that on the album, there is soul in it…
Yeah that’s what I was aiming for, I had a vision of all of this, but of course you never know if it is going to happen. It was just a will of mine, seeing things in a way I always thought they should be. I think music has to have life, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. I also try to figure out what’s missing. Everybody compete with other bands, I think that is ridiculous. I think the world is full of people and competing who’s better, that makes no sense to me. I think our music lacks influences. On social media people talk about so much stuff, except the music these days. I was really frustrated with that and that is why I am always so obsessed about making something genuine, something that I thought there is not out there. I really want the people to listen to this album and say: ‘wait a minute, this reminds me of this and that, but is there anything like this?’ and if I can accomplish that, that was my goal and I feel very humbled and proud at the same time.